November was dark already, falling into early evening when the shadows lengthened suddenly, reaching across the wooden floorboards to absorb little golden sparks crackling over the hearth. Eli was seated cross-legged on the rug with a blanket slung over his shoulders, staring into the flames as if they might answer the ache he had yet to put in words.
He heard Amon's footsteps before he saw him.
Now lighter, closer to a human throb: no more long-forgotten echoes of divine presence when he entered a room, nor the tremors dancing in the very walls. A little too much had been given and still gave away with every breath he took beside Eli.
Amon crouched behind him, wrapping his arms about his chest and burying his face into the curve of Eli's neck. Eli let the blanket fall away. Skin to skin now, bare in ways that had nothing to do with clothing.
"I feel it," Amon murmured. "The mark on your chest is starting to pulse."
"It's warm," Eli said. "Not painful. Like something is waking up."
Amon kissed his shoulder. "That's because you are."
They sat like that, silently, the fire being the only voice in between; but something yet lay in the air, neither tension nor danger, but a memory that had not fully faded.
"Kael loved you, didn't he?" Eli asked, voice almost a breath.
Amon did not move. "He thought he did. But love is not a shackle on your weakness. It doesn't choose heaven over your heart."
"He looked at you like he wanted to burn with you."
Amon made a soft, dry sound. "He wanted to own me. And I let him once. I was young. Beautiful. Obedient. And too scared of being alone."
Eli slightly turned to face him. "And now?"
Amon looked at him with eyes laid bare of all masks. "Now I would rather die as myself than survive another hundred years belonging to somebody else."
Eli leaned forward and kissed him. Slowly. Softly. Not asking for answers, merely being.
But when it ended, the air crackled with heat in their space.
Amon's hand traced over his chest. "You carry two flames now. One is mine. The other... was always yours."
"What does that mean?"
"It means," Amon said, "you are more than mortal."
Eli swallowed. "Then why do I still feel so human?"
Amon's hand had drifted lower. "Because you are human. And that's what makes this real."
The two bodies came together again, slow and deliberate. The fire beside them burned brighter and brighter, mimicking the rhythm of their hearts.
Amon kissed him as if mapping out a temple. Eli responded in kind — not out of obligation, not out of need but by choice. They did not speak; they did not need to. Each sigh was a sentence, each breath was a confession.
When Amon entered him, it was not possession. It was surrender. And power. And rebirth.
And in that moment, Eli understood something.
The mark on his chest was not just for his defense.
It was a door.
Something inside the air shattered when they peaked in their union — the ripple that traveled through the cottage like a scream, overtly silent.
Eli gasped, light burning beneath his ribs. A pulse. A voice.
He belongs to you. But so do we.
Much later, tangled in afterglow, Eli rested his head upon Amon's chest.
"I saw something," he whispered. "During... us."
"What did you see?"
"A doorway. Inside me. And a voice said... he belongs to you. But so do we."
Amon clasped him tighter. "They know. The others. The ones who were forgotten."
"Are there others like you?"
"No," Amon said. "Others like you."
Eli blinked. "There are more of me?"
"Not exactly." Amon paused. "You were not created. You were... summoned."
Eli propped himself up slightly. "What?"
"Something tore in the sky the day you were born. A piece of power came through. It chose you. Made you. That's why I was able to find you again. That's why Kael couldn't kill you."
Eli's skin buzzed with awareness. "Then what am I?"
Amon cupped his face. "You're the bridge. Between what was and what will be. Between heaven, and hell, and something far older."
Eli's mouth went dry. "That sounds like a prophecy."
"It is not," Amon smiled softly. "It is just you."
Eli laughed nervously. "You say that like it's a good thing!"
"It is," Amon replied. "Because I love you. Whether you are a god, a man, or something they've never seen before — I choose you."
Eli kissed him again.
But something was watching from the shadows beneath the deep-set beams of the cabin.
Not Kael.
Not divine.
Something ancient.
It whispered across the stones, inaudible to human ears, but enough to make the flame flicker.